Elon Musk isn’t known to be someone that plays by the rules. When you forge several industry-leading companies on your way to amassing the biggest fortune known to man, you have to be willing to take risks others wouldn’t.
That same penchant for tempting fate can, however, land him in trouble, with Musk incurring various run-ins with the justice system—whether it be his questionable bailout of SolarCity with Tesla’s money, bailing on a contractually agreed acquisition or selling customers a dream their cars will earn them money while they sleep.
Now his hasty rebrand of Twitter has once again landed him in hot water after he denied city building inspectors access to his San Francisco headquarters when they sought to confirm his new “X” rooftop sign did not pose a safety hazard to pedestrians below.
In what appears to be a response to a formal complaint lodged by the city, Musk sought to appeal to its residents by shifting attention back to local officials, whom he blamed for plunging the city into a “doom spiral.”
“Beautiful San Francisco,” the tycoon posted to his 150 million followers on X over the weekend, “though others forsake you, we will always be your friend.”
Despite Musk’s professed love for the tech metropolis, he already moved Tesla’s headquarters from the Bay Area city of Fremont to Texas over a feud related to pandemic lockdowns.
His treatment of Twitter has also earned him more critics among the local population.
In December he was booed out by the crowd attending a Dave Chappelle comedy show, and a month later he claimed he couldn’t get a fair trial in San Francisco.
Our HQ in San Francisco tonight pic.twitter.com/VQO2NoX9Tz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2023
City officials meanwhile warned that the installation of his oversize “X” rooftop logo required a planning review and approval that Musk had not secured.
“A building permit is required to make sure the sign is structurally sound and installed safely,” a spokesman for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection said in a statement to the New York Times on Sunday.
In addition, Musk had also sought to remove the familiar Twitter bird logo from the side of the building.
His efforts were stopped by police after construction workers failed to properly cordon off the area to protect passersby from building materials raining down on their heads.
These fresh troubles with city officials wouldn’t have happened were it not for Musk’s divisive rebranding that experts believe wiped billions of dollars off the value of Twitter, a company that is already worth half of the $44 billion that Musk and his investors paid.
Musk has explained his decision by citing concerns consumers associated the bird logo too much with microblogging and may not accept it as a company offering services built primarily around digital payments.
The entrepreneur’s wealth is currently estimated by Forbes at $240 billion so he can easily afford a short-term hit in pursuit of his larger goal.
Musk’s dream is to ultimately turn the company formerly known as Twitter into a western clone of WeChat, Tencent’s “everything app” wildly popular in China, one of the few times he has looked to blatantly copy a rival’s business idea.
